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7 Keys to Creativity

When we think about creative people, we tend to think of artists, writers, painters, and the like, but creativity is an essential part of almost everything we do. Whether it is figuring out the best bridge design to span a river or cooking dinner for our family, the opportunity to be creative is always there. So how do you help your child foster their creativity?

Creative thinking expert Michael Michalko spells out his seven tenets of creative thinking, the seven things he wishes he were taught as a student. Helping your child learn these lessons can help them (and you) be a more creative person.

You are creative. Everyone creates, especially as a child. It is only as we get older that we begin to think of ourselves as creative or not. The main thing that identifies creative people is that they believe they are creative, and so they develop their abilities to express themselves.

Creative thinking is work. Thomas Edison once said that genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. Being creative requires dedication to developing new ideas, most of which will be bad. What separates great photographers from the amateurs is that the great ones take many, many more pictures. Every great movie leaves piles of footage on the cutting room floor.

You must go through the motions. Our brains build connections as we do and learn things, and the more that we do those things, the stronger the connections become. Working to come up with creative ideas increases your ability to be creative. Creative ideas don’t come to you. You have to go chase after them, and the more you chase, the better you’ll be at catching them.

Your brain is not a computer. Our brains don’t really separate fact from fiction. It is why a good book can transport us to another place. It is why we feel the same exhilaration as Luke Skywalker when the Death Star blows up and cower in our seats during a scary movie. Imagining is an essential part of creativity. Walt Disney called the creative people working on his movies and parks imagineers, a portmanteau of imagination engineers.

There is no right answer. Little kids tend to think of things as black or white, but as adults we know there are many shades of gray in between. When trying to create new ideas, it is essential to not evaluate them as they come to us. Every idea is a possibility, so you should generate as many as possible before figuring out if they are any good or not. Edison himself thought of 3,000 different lighting system ideas before he even began to evaluate whether they would work or not.

There is no such thing as failure. If you don’t succeed, you still have produced something. What’s important is what you learn from what you produced, even if it didn’t work. As author Neil Gaiman said in his commencement address at the University of the Arts in 2012, “I hope you’ll make mistakes. If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something. And the mistakes in themselves can be useful. I once misspelled Caroline, in a letter, transposing the A and the O, and I thought, ‘Coraline looks like a real name…’” Coraline is, of course, one of his most famous children’s books as well as a successful movie.

You don’t see things as they are—you see them as you Experiences don’t have meaning until we give them meaning, and the meaning we give them depends on where we are in life and what we believe to be true. Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, which made mainframe computers, famously said that there was no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak saw the same industry through a different lens, and now most of us not only have computers in our homes but also in our pockets and purses. Creative people realize that we construct our reality by how we interpret our experiences.

By keeping these seven keys in mind, we can help our children become more creative, supporting them when they get discouraged and encouraging a growth mindset.